Create Two-Way Journeys™

Conversational, Two-Way Journeys™ let you build dynamic, two-way conversations between you and your subscribers to help you uncover unique customer preferences. When subscribers reply to your surveys and questionnaires with a specific keyword, conversational journeys automatically send them personalized recommendations, additional product details, special offers and more. You can fully customize both the keywords that trigger conversational replies, as well as the content of each reply.

Conversational journeys work in tandem with custom attributes, which let you save customizable attributes to each subscriber based on their keyword responses. You can then build segments based from this information and send targeted campaign messages moving forward. For more, check out Define and collect custom attributes.

You should know

• You’ll get the best results with Two-Way Journeys if you have a good idea of what you want to build before you start. You may want to check out What are Two-Way Journeys? to learn more about what you can build, or check out some of our favorite, real-world Two-Way Journeys on Texts We Love. 
• If a subscriber responds but doesn’t include a keyword, then nothing will be sent. If the same subscriber sends a second (or more) replies without a keyword, they'll exit the journey and enter the default auto-response journey in Settings.
• Smart Sending and Quiet Hours message options aren't available for messages you send as part of a conversation in a Two-Way Journey. You can however use both options in messages sent before the conversation branches begin or after the conversation branches merge. For more, see the Two-Way Journeys FAQ.

Launch prebuilt Two-Way Journeys

You can use prebuilt Two-Way Journeys to quickly launch conversational messaging for your brand. Prebuilt Two-Way Journeys were built with conversational messaging best practices in mind, and include both conversational prompts and product personalizations that'll resonate with your subscribers.

As with other prebuilt journeys, you’re free to customize each aspect of the journey, including which personalizations are used and the message prompts you send to subscribers. You can also collect custom attributes with prebuilt Two-Way Journeys.

Available prebuilt Two-Way Journeys:

• Welcome New Subscribers: Message new subscribers with an offer like a discount code when they first opt-in to messaging. For more, check out Welcome journeys.
  
  Note: You can make new welcome messages only after the White Glove team has built your first welcome message. If you don't already see a welcome journey, contact our White Glove team (whiteglove@attentivemobile.com).
  
  
• Cart Abandonment: Message subscribers after they add a product to their cart, but didn’t complete the purchase.

To launch a prebuilt Two-Way Journey:

1. While signed in to Attentive, go to Journeys.
2. Click the Prebuilt journeys tab.
3. Click on either the Cart Abandonment or Welcome New subscribers prebuilt journey tile that includes the Conversational label.
   
   Your new Two-Way Journey opens. From here, you can click Turn On in the upper right corner to launch it right away, or customize it further by adding additional steps, branches, or editing message copy.
   

Create a custom Two-Way Journey

You can also build a custom Two-Way Journey, tailoring each trigger, message, and personalization to your brand. You can build a custom Two-Way Journey with any journey trigger by adding a Send auto-reply text message step to a journey.

To create a custom Two-Way Journey:

1. Create a new journey. You can use a prebuilt journey template, or build one from scratch. You can also open and edit an existing journey you want to add conversational messaging to.
2. Click the + where you want to add the conversational step, and select Send auto-reply text message. The Send conversational text message step opens.

   Note: If you're using a Texted-a-keyword journey, the entrance keyword can't be used in any "Send auto-reply text message" step in any other Two Way Journey™.

   
3. For Select reply format, choose either:
   1. List of keywords: Select if you want subscribers to reply with a typed keyword. Here’s how List of keywords appears on subscriber devices:
      
   2. Recommended Keywords with descriptions: Select if you want subscribers to reply with a number or letter.
      
      Tip: Most brands using Attentive have had better results using keywords with descriptions.
4. For Step 1, write a message that introduces a topic to subscribers and asks them to respond.
5. For Step 2: Reply, write one or more keyword responses. When subscribers in this journey reply with one of the keywords you set here, they enter the corresponding keyword branch. You can add up to 20 keyword replies, but you’ll get the best results if you stick to three to five responses.
   
   For each keyword response, you can set:
   
   1. Auto-response reply: The character, number, or phrase subscribers send to you to continue the auto-reply text message journey.
   2. Connector: How your reply prompt connects to the description. Select from: for, -, to get, or if.
   3. Reply reason, item, or outcome: Enter a short description of each reply option.
6. Add each conversational prompt you want to include, and then click Save. Your journey now has a unique branch of each keyword response.
   
7. Add a Send text message step in each branch. Keep in mind that subscribers will only see this message if they selected that reply.
   
8. Optionally – but strongly recommended – add an Add custom attribute step in each branch. For more, see Define and collect custom attributes.
   
9. When you’re finished building your Two-Way Journey, add an End journey step, and then click Turn on in the upper right corner.